January 14, 2026 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the origins of the Protestant Reformation trace back to a deceptively simple and deeply personal question. A Catholic monk named Martin Luther wrestled with it for years: Am I a good person? That spiritual struggle would ultimately shake the foundations of Christianity and transform Western civilization. Eric Metaxas, bestselling author of Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, tells the story of how one man’s search for grace sparked the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of world history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Today's story is about one man who changed
the world five hundred years ago. The origin of this
(00:33):
conflict flowed from a deceptively simple question, a riddle of
sorts that a Catholic monk named Martin Luther wrestled with
for years. The question he asked himself was this Am
I a good person? Here to tell the story is
best selling author Eric Matexas. Eric wrote Martin Luther, the
man who rediscovered God and changed the world. Let's take
(00:58):
a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
When Martin Luther King Junior was about five years old. Okay,
we're talking about the Black leader in twentieth century. His
father was a famous Baptist preacher, and he visited the
Holy Land with a whole bunch of other Baptists. This
is like would have been I don't know, nineteen twenty
(01:22):
or something I'm not gonna write. And on the way
back he went to Germany and visited Wittenberg and stuff,
and was so blown away. This is the Black Father
was so blown away by the life of Martin Luther
that as an adult he changed his name from Michael
King to Martin Luther King. As an adult, he changed
(01:48):
his name. That's how big of a deal Luther has
been in history. And his son, Michael Junior, changed his
name to Martin Luther King Junior. Until the day Martin
Luther King Junior died, his close friends called him Mike.
I would say Luther is the most influential man in
(02:09):
two thousand years, apart from Jesus. There's no doubt that
God used this very flawed man, and so I was
really convinced that this is a gigantically important story. Luther
was born on November tenth, but the year in which
he was born, we actually don't know. We're sure that
it's fourteen eighty two, fourteen eighty three, or fourteen eighty four.
(02:31):
I'm pretty sure it's fourteen eighty three, but no one
really knows, including his own mother, who was nearby when
it took place. We actually don't that's kind of weird,
but it's true. But he's born on November tenth. On
November eleventh, they take him to church and baptize him,
because the whole point was if you're not baptized, you'll
go to Hell forever, right, so you might want to
(02:54):
speed up with the baptismal process. Kind of important. So
they baptized him on November eleventh, which was Saint Martin's death,
and they named him Martin, after the saint for whom
the day was named. So Luther was raised in a
fairly well to do family. Now there's all these myths
you hear that he grew up and he always said,
(03:14):
I am the son of a poor miner, and I
come from peasant stock. He was kind of like blowing
smoke the way politicians do. They kind of like want
to try to, you know, tell you they come from
these humble roots. But the reality is his roots were
not that humble. He was exaggerating a little bit. His
father was not a poor miner. His father was an ambitious,
successful businessman in the mining business. His father wanted his
(03:37):
brilliant son to go to the best schools and to
go to the university, study law, and then come home
to Mansfeld and work in the family business. They needed
a brilliant lawyer to work with them, and they put
him on this path. They could never go to college,
you know, so they said it's on you. So the
problem is that Luther grew up at a time went
salvation and the fear of hell was so real that
(04:02):
while he is away from home at these schools, he's
thinking about eternal matters. Now his parents were Christians, but
I think that wherever he was that he had the freedom,
as being very sensitive, brilliant young man, to be thinking
about this stuff, and I think it was eating at him.
And by the time he goes to law school, he's
twenty two years old. His father sacrificed everything. Things come
(04:25):
to a head, and he has heard of some people
dying and on their deathbeds saying, you know, I wish
I hadn't done this, or that I wish I had
got into a monastery. I wish I'd given everything to God,
because now I'm facing eternity and I'm scared. People often
tell the story as though one day Luther's blithely minding
(04:48):
his own business, walking, you know, on the heath in
the village of Stuttternheim. A thunderstorm comes scares him to death.
He thinks he's going to be struck by lightning and
enter eternity, and he says, Saint save me. If you
save me, I'll become a monk. Saint Anne was the
patron saint of minors. And he doesn't die, and then
he thinks, well, I've just made a vow. I guess
I've got to become a monk. And he becomes a monk.
(05:09):
And that's, of course ridiculous because he had been thinking
about his own salvation very much in the years preceding this.
So the implication that this was just something that he
blurts out in a moment of fear and then it
changes the course of his whole life is just silly.
He was thinking incessantly about eternity. So when the thunderstorm
(05:31):
came and he says this vow, which did happen? It
was only all of these things coming to a head.
It wasn't some dramatic thing. The bottom line is this
was against his father's wishes. But he said, I cannot
take a chance. He was scared of obeying his father
(05:52):
and going to Hell forever, and so he does this
against his father's wishes, and he gets into the monastery,
and what happens in the monastery, well, he realizes that
if I have to earn heaven, which was the basic
way of thinking, that means I've got to pray constantly,
I've got a fast constantly. I've got to deny myself
(06:13):
every pleasure. I have to confess every sinful thought. Otherwise,
any sinful thought can drag me to hell unless I
confess it to a priest, not to God, to a
priest who will officially absolve me. And if he doesn't
officially absolve me, I go to hell.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And you're listening to Eric Metaxas tell the story of
Martin Luther. And we tell this story because of course
America was founded by people who were a part of
this split in the Church that happened in the sixteenth century.
And what a fascinating story about his youth. The myth
busted my Metaxis that he came from a poor family
(06:56):
and that the father was a minor, a slight exact duration,
as Eric would put it, but one that was not true.
He came from a well to do family, well enough
to send him off to law school for the study
of law. That there was a crisis slurking, and an
existential one, a philosophical one, a spiritual one, because Luther
was worried about his eternal soul and worried about Hell.
(07:19):
So he leaves Law heads to the monastery. And when
we come back, more of this remarkable story of Martin
Luther here on our American Stories. Lee Hibibe here the
host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
(07:40):
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
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you love what you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give.
(08:09):
And we continue with our American Stories and with Eric Metexas.
He's the author of Martin Luther, the Man who we
discovered God and change the world. Let's pick up where
we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Luther believed. Now think about this, I mean, later on
he taught that when you make a confession to God
and you repent to God, you're good. Faith is all
you need and God will forgive you. But the church
taught and Luther eventually fought viciously with this concept, the
Church said, it doesn't matter what is in your heart
and with God, you have to go to a priest.
(08:47):
Only the priest has the right and the authority granted
to him by Christ to absolve you of your sin.
So if you do not confess your sin officially with
a priest, it is still on you. It's still on
the books and will drag you to hell forever. Now,
if you take that as seriously as Luther took it,
you would never leave the confession booth. And so he
(09:13):
was miserable, trying to please God, trying to earn his
way into the favor of God. So Luther spends his
life praying and fasting and confessing like a maniac, driving
his father confessor insane, trying to seeing what Luther's going through,
how he's tortured and brilliant and passionate and intense, and
(09:34):
he sees that he's not finding peace. And he says
to him, do you hate God or you think God
hates you? God loves you? But Luther could not get this.
So he would come in and he thought, I've got
to confess every sin, and he would confess things like
you on Tuesday, I prayed for five hours, and at
the end of it, I had a flicker of pride
(09:55):
for having prayed for five hours, and that flicker of
pride will pull me into hell. So I confess it,
and you can imagine bunched up. It's like rolling his eyes.
He actually says to Luther, only half joking, bring me
a serious sin, bring me adultery or murder, or otherwise,
get out. I'm a busy man. Luther was just driving
(10:16):
him insane with every random thought, confessing, confessing, and he
understood that Luther is never going to find peace this way.
He's trying to earn the peace of God, and Luther
was failing. So Luther had another idea. He said, since
this is not working, I wonder if someplace in the
(10:37):
Bible there is the key, the golden key that I'm
looking for, the cure for what ails me now. People
had not read the Bible up to this point for many,
many centuries. Obviously, the printing press was not invented till
the fourteen fifties, and Luther is at the monastery in
fifteen oh five, so having Bibles was not a normal thing,
(10:59):
and the Catholic Church of that day did not have Bibles,
and they didn't read the Bible. They would use the
Bible as a text to create commentaries on the Bible.
So you'd study the commentaries, and you'd study commentaries on
the commentaries, but actually studying the Bible was not done.
The Bible had been translated by Saint Jerome twelve hundred
(11:20):
years earlier into Latin, and they had the Latin Vulgate,
and that was the official Church translation in Latin. Well,
Luther was living at a time humanism, this intellectual trend
was coming out where because of the fall of Constantinople
in fourteen fifty three, all these Greek scholars had come
out and suddenly they were revivifying the ancient languages, and
(11:41):
people began to read ancient texts, including the Bible, in
the original language. So Luther jumps on this and starts
studying the actual Bible, digging into it like a man
looking for the cure to a fatal disease, saying, if
I don't find it, I will die. And Luther felt,
if I don't find it, I will die the second death,
(12:04):
I will never be in the presence of God. I
need to find it, and so he obsessively reads through
the scriptures. Now, he was a super brilliant Bible reader,
and he dug and dug, and he taught Bible at
the university. And at some point around fifteen seventeen, he
reads Romans one seventeen. He reads this verse that he'd
(12:26):
never really understood before. It says, for in the Gospel,
the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written,
the just shall live by faith. And it finally strikes him,
I've been doing it all wrong. It is only by
(12:47):
faith that I can apprehend God, and by faith I
get the free gift of the righteousness of God. I
can't become righteous on my own. It's useless. But God,
who is holy and righteous, gives me the free gift
(13:08):
the Gospel. The good news is that he gives it
to me as a gift. I mean, imagine somebody gives
you a gift and you go, let me just give
you five bucks for that. That's insulting. He understands this
is a gift from God. The love of God and
the righteousness of God are given to me. And all
(13:28):
I need to do is believe that. And the Word
says it, and it's imputed to me as righteousness. I
am free. I am saved. Game over. I don't need
to climb and claw and work and pray. I'm saved.
It's over. And then when you appreciate that gift and
you apprehend it by faith, you accept the gift. Now
(13:51):
you can do all kinds of good works. But it's
the motivation is gratitude to the God who gave you
this free gift. I want to bless him. I want
to love people with the love with which he has
loved me. I want to help the poor, I want
to feed the hungry. I want to do every good
thing out of the joy and the gratitude of this
(14:13):
free gift of grace which I have apprehended only by faith. Wow,
this changes Luther's life, obviously, it changes everything. Imagine living
in a world where nobody gets this. They have because
of tradition over centuries, kind of built this up where
it's sort of about do this and don't do this,
(14:34):
and do this and don't do this. But once Luther
experiences this, the famous moments the day he nails the
ninety five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral,
that's the moment, and it's related, but not that directly related. Basically,
Luther notices that in the Catholic Church at this time,
they're doing this thing where they preach indulgences, where people
(14:55):
are throwing money into the coffers of the church and
buying these dificats kind of get out of jail free cards,
and it was creating this kind of corrupt, cynical world.
And Luther said, as a priest, this is not good
for the flock, this is not good for the sheep.
As a theologian, I need to tell my superiors what
is going on. Now. This is related to the works
(15:17):
righteousness stuff that I was just talking about, but it
starts out with a specific thing of indulgences. And Luther
does not shake his fist at the church. And you know,
we get this image of him. He was a humble monk,
a humble man of God, wanting to say in the
humblest way to his superiors, we have a problem. We
need to examine this problem. So why don't we have
(15:37):
a theological debate. That's what we theologians do in the university.
So in Latin, I'll write up these ninety five feces.
I'll post it on the church door, which, by the way,
was only the local bulletin board. He wasn't trying to
be like a big shop by saying I'm gonna put
it on the church door. The church store was the
bulletin board. Once you realize that, it doesn't seem so heroic, right,
(15:58):
But in retrospect we really that when he did that,
it blew everything up. It led to trouble.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And you've been listening to Eric Metaxas tell the story
of Martin Luther, and imagine this young man trying to
save his immortal soul and confessing his sin, trying to
well work his way into heaven.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And to save his soul from hell.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And he's confessing, and he's praying, and he's festing, and
he's essentially driving his confessor, his priest crazy. But he
believes and knows at the time that the only way
to get through, or at least that was the Catholic
Church's position, was through a priest. And then he discovers
that he can take his case directly to God. That
and some other criticisms of the church were posted on
(16:46):
the door of the church.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
But back then this was not some.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
High revolt, the mere act of posting something on a
church door. It was akin to posting something on a
bulletin board. But it was what was on that paper
that revolutionize the church. His critiques and by the way,
these critiques out of love for the church, not out
of hate for the Catholic Church. When we come back
(17:10):
more of the story of Martin Luther as told by
Eric Matexas, author of Martin Luther, The Man Who Discovered
God and Changed the World. Here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of Martin Luther as told by Eric Mattexas, author of
Martin Luther, The Man Who Discovered God and Changed the World.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
People said, who does he think he is criticizing indulgences,
and they, you know, threw mudd at him, and he
threw some mud back. He defended himself and it turned
into a conflagration that consumed all of Europe. This humble
monk never intended that. He never intended to break away
from the church. This was the only church he knew.
(18:45):
He never intended to start another church. Never. There were
other reformers who said almost exactly what Luther said. One
hundred years earlier. Jan Huss the family was Hungarian wicklift Hinendale.
And then there are some reformers like Saint Francis who
never were in scendiary or trouble making. But that's just
(19:08):
because they had a good pope or they had a
good who knows. But Wickliffe and Jan Huss they had
said almost exactly what Luther said. But the church and
the power was able to contain the trouble and crush
it and burn them at the stake, and that was
the end of that. The difference was when Luther brought
(19:29):
his information forward the printing press existed, which of course
it did not in fourteen fifteen when Hus was condemned
and people, without even asking Luther took the ninety five fieces.
He said, oh, this looks interesting. They translated into German
and they printed it and it sold like hotcakes. And
next thing, you know, everybody in Europe, not just Germany,
(19:51):
is reading these ninety five theieces, thinking hey, this is
a hot potato. This is the Pope's not going to
like this. It started to get kind of, you know,
beyond the horse got out of the barn and there
was no bringing it back in. So everything he wrote
then he would preach a sermon to clarify, like, oh, listen,
I don't read the theses. Let me let me give
(20:11):
my my more considered thinking on the subject of indulgences.
I'll preach a sermon. I better preach a sermon and
clarify because people are all hot headed about the ninety
five theses, which I only meant for other theologians to
read in Latin, but now everybody's talking about it. So
he preaches a sermon and prints it up and translate
into German, and then that gets distributed, and then the
archbishop says to him, well, you know that's causing trouble too,
(20:34):
can you can you can you stop distributing that? Can
you say? Well? Of course he was very humble in
but eventually Luther learned to use the medium of printing
and he could get his message out to the people.
There really had never been a people before. They were
just there was rulers and the people whom they ruled,
(20:56):
and they had nothing to say about anything. But suddenly
Luther his writings are getting out there and the people
are reading it and they're getting excited and they're thinking,
this man speaks for us. He's saying exactly what's true.
He's talking about the corruption, he's talking about this, he's
talking about that, and this is exactly what we feel.
And so, as I say, the horse got out of
the barn. And so even if they had killed Luther,
(21:18):
the movement, these intellectual ideas were out and there was
no bringing him back. Eventually, in fifteen twenty one, at
the grotesquely named Diet of Worms. Vorms was a city
in Germany, and Luther was called to go to the
City of Worms to face the music. The Pope had
(21:41):
sent a representative. The Holy Roman Empire was represented by
the Emperor Charles and all of the nobles, and they're
there to hear this man defend himself. Four years into
this insanity where the whole world is talking about these ideas,
and suddenly he's there and they say to him, because
(22:02):
they're trying to crush this descent. Things have gotten out
of hand, and they're trying to say to him, excuse me,
shut up, right, not excuse me, What did you mean
by that? How can we help you? It's excuse me,
you shut up. Racan't what you said, and we'll let
you walk out of here. But if you don't, you
will be taken to Rome and burnt at the stake.
(22:24):
So Luther has an opportunity to walk away. And it
reminds me of my friend Chuck Colson. He was given
a plea bargain at Watergate, and they basically said to him, look, look, look,
you want to avoid jail time. You got teenage kids,
you don't want to do jail time. Just sign on
this line, just say you did these things that you
didn't do. But you do that and you walk out
of here. Take the deal. Chuck your nuts not to
take the deal. Sign it. And he said, well, I
(22:48):
have a problem. I'm a Christian. I can't do that.
And Luther was in the same position. He said, I
understand that all I have to do is say I
recan't Everything I've said sorry won't happen again, and I
walk out of here. But he felt compelled by God
not to do that. He felt compelled by God to
(23:10):
demand of them that they show him where he had
made a mistake. He said, if I'm wrong, I don't
want to paper this over. Show me where I screwed up.
Show me, and of course I will recant and repent,
but you have to show me. From the scriptures what
did I get wrong? They didn't do that. They said,
(23:30):
are these your books? Yes or no? Yes? Do you
recant what you've written in these books? Yes or no?
He said, how can I recant what I've written? I've
written many good things in these books. Show me what
it is that I've gotten wrong. Show me They weren't
going to do that. They wanted just to say, shut up,
bow before the authority of the church, and everything will
(23:51):
be fine. And he says, I can't do that. And
the famous line is here, I stand, I can do
no other You want me to recant unless you show
me from the scriptures? Here I stand, I can do
no Whether God help me. Amen, He casts himself on
(24:11):
the mercy of the Lord. Luther did not fear what
they could do to him. He said, I fear God.
I fear the truth. I want to represent what is true.
What about all those people depending on me? God's gonna
hold me responsible all those people. I have to speak
the truth. So he spoke the truth. And this is
(24:35):
one of the watersheds in the history of the world.
When you appreciate what happened in that room, it is
mind blowing. It's an epical moment in history. Others had
done it before, but somehow, when he did it, it
opened the door to what we call the future. I
(24:55):
say that he was the man that created the future,
the man that discovered the future. By holding the Gospel
up in this way, he did something that changed the
world forever and ever, and all of the freedoms that
we take for granted, the very idea of democracy, the
idea that the individual can speak against power, and that
(25:17):
all of these things. The whole modern world started that day.
And it's not an overstatement to say that that is
exactly what happened on that day.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Informs and you're listening to Eric Mattexas tell one heck
of a story of Martin Luther. And again, Eric is
the author of Martin Luther, The Man who Discovered God
and changed the World. He's also the author of one
of my favorite books. Bonheffer picked both up, You won't
regret It, two of the greatest reads you'll ever experience
(25:49):
in your lifetime. You're hearing a good bulk of the
story here, and it was just simple. He was saying
to the Church and the superiors, let's have a discussion.
I have a problem. I have some text to back it.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Up.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You see, the Bible was now within reach of some people.
There were printing presses, and this was a problem for
the superiors. And of course, well, what people do with
power is what they do with power. And they wanted
Martin Luther to simply recant, and not recant on principle,
not recant after a debate or a discussion, but simply
to recant and repent because they said so. And of
(26:24):
course he didn't. Here I stand, I can do no
other was his reply. And of course he didn't fear man,
he feared God. And this would begin a revolution in
the world. His example would begin a revolution in the world.
More of the story of Martin Luther, the Man who
discovered God and changed the world. Here on our American stories.
(27:37):
And we continue with our American stories and with Eric Mattexas,
the author of Martin Luther, the Man who Rediscovered God
and changed the World. Here is Eric with the final
part of this remarkable story.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
He's declared not just a heretic, but now an outlaw,
meaning that the Pope says he's a heretic, but then
the Holy Roman Emperor declares him an outlaw. Because if
the Pope says you're a heretic. You are now also illegal,
you're an outlaw, renegade. And so they let him go
back home, but it's pretty clear that as soon as
(28:12):
he gets home, there's going to be, you know, somebody's
gonna come to arrest him, and then he's going to
be taken to Rome and he's going to be burned
to the steake. So his protector, in a way, Frederick
the Third, Frederick the Wise, who he sensed that Rome,
those Italians are not treating him right. They didn't give
him a fair hearing, and I don't want him to
go down there and be killed and whatever. So here's
(28:33):
what we're going to do. We're going to kidnap him.
And it's out of a movie, right that he is
on the way home from Vorms, going home, and he
knows this is going to happen. They've told him, but
they told him they didn't tell him who's going to
kidnap you, nor where they're going to take you, you
know nothing, Just go along with it, and they kidnap
him with crossbows drawn. It's actually kind of a scary scene.
(28:57):
The people in the wagon didn't know that this was fake.
And so Luther is kidnapped by these strangers and dragged
through the night to a castle called the Vartborg. It's
way up in the Thuringian forest and it's this castle
and nobody knows he's there. And then if that's not,
you know, exciting enough, he has to be disguised. So
(29:20):
he grows out his tonsure, you know, the tonsure they
would shave their heads. He grows out his hair, and
he grows a beard, a cavalier's beard, to look like
a knight because he has to blend in with the
other knights at the castle. They're not told that this
is Martin Luther, so they call him Knight George or
Junker Georg. And he's now incognito as a knight in
(29:42):
the castle for a year. And of course while he's there,
he's dressed as a knight, and he's kind of bored
because he's a very busy guy. When he's back home
now he has nothing to do. So what does he do.
He translates the New Testament into German in eleven weeks.
People say, well, was this the first time it had
(30:03):
been translating to German. No, but it was the first
time it was translated from the original Greek, not from
the Latin Vulgate, so it was accurate. He was obsessed
with what exactly does the Word of God say? What
does it say? And there were some mistakes in the
Latin Vulgate translated by Jerome, which the Church had accepted,
and so he wanted to get it exactly right, and
(30:27):
he wanted to write it in such a way that
the common men and women of Germany could understand what
it said. He knew that this book has never been
read by these people, and so his writing was so good.
This is the thing. This man's nothing but a genius
of history. His writing was so good that to this
(30:47):
day Germans read the Luther translation. I mean, it's not
like it was some primitive thing that they've improved upon.
He was a poet with the vernacular. As a result
of that, the Gospel was allowed out of its cage
into the world in a way that it had never
(31:07):
been before. Now this is not to say that the
Gospel didn't exist before Luther or God forbid, but it
had been sort of hidden and forgotten. Luther rediscovers it
in a way that he brings it into the world,
not just so that we can get saved, but so
that we who get saved can then take that gospel
(31:28):
and do every good thing imaginable in the world in
gratitude to the God of Mercy. The Gospel frees us
to bring justice and truth and life. Slavery would never
have been abolished in the United States of America if
not for born again Jesus freaks who believed were all
created in the image of God. What do you think
(31:50):
the idea came from secular people? Church people, born again
Jesus freaks who believed in the Word of God said
slon abomination, and we don't care what has been going
on for thousands of years. It needs to end. That
is the Gospel of Jesus Christ freed into history. Luther
is a huge piece of that. And I have to
(32:11):
tell you, if he had not had the courage and
the faith to stand when he stood, I have no
idea how it would have gone down. This is one
of the most beautiful things that fairly late in life
for him. He was forty one and he decides to
(32:33):
get married. And it wasn't because he was lusting and
he said, I've got to get married. It wasn't because
he was madly in love and he had to marry
this woman. He found himself in a place in life
where this nun had escaped from the nunnery. Actually Luther
sprang her from the jug He was, you know, the
main orchestrator of this escape of the Nimshen twelve nuns
(32:56):
from Nimshen. We call him the Nimpshen twelve. And they
had to figure out what they're going to do. You
can't just these nuns had been there against their will,
and he thought it's not right, and they need to
be able to make their own decisions. If they don't
want to be nuns, they shouldn't have to be nuns.
And so this was highly illegal, and he springs them
out of there, and suddenly where do they come. They
all come to Wittenberg and sort of say, well, okay,
(33:18):
now what do we do? So he had to get
them married off. I mean he had to find them,
you know, a position in a house or something. They
had to do something because they were poor. And one
of them didn't want to marry the man that they
had kind of picked for her. And she was kind
of brassy and outspoken, you know, instead of saying, okay,
thank you very much, I'll marry this guy. She didn't
(33:40):
like him, and she told Luther's friend Nicholas von Lmsdorf,
I really don't want to marry that guy, and she said,
rather cheekily, I would marry you, meaning Nicholas von Armsdorf
or doctor Luther. So in a way, she's the one
that proposed. It's very funny. Armsdorf was not at all
interested in marrying and Luther somehow his head got turned
(34:03):
slightly around, and at first he thought she was arrogant
or something, but at some point he decided he esteemed her.
That's the phrase that I use, and I think that
he uses that. He really respected her. She was only
she was fifteen years younger, far less educated, but he
really really respected her. And that grew into a beautiful
(34:27):
and deep love that is so beautiful that it should
be a model for all of us. We're all looking
for these feelings and stuff. He had this really beautiful relationship.
The two of them esteemed each other and loved each other,
and they had six kids, and he loved his kids.
And it shows you a dramatically different side, the playful
(34:47):
side of the human side of Martin Luther. Luther said
many things in his life that were extremely positive about
the Jews were he was way ahead of his time
in understanding their plight, the way Christians treated them and stuff.
But the Nazis cynical, satanically influenced that they were. They
(35:10):
found what Luther wrote just a few years before he died.
He was, for him, very ill and cranky, and he
had by that time in his life gotten to where
he was saying extraordinarily nasty things about everyone. He was vicious.
His friends told him, you know, you got to stop tweeting.
(35:31):
It's not presidential, and oh, you know what, I'm sorry.
I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I apologize.
But at his very funeral, his dearest friend Melanthon is
saying in his eulogy that Luther was not a perfect guy.
So everybody kind of knew it. But the point is
(35:53):
that Luther was vicious to the Catholics and to the Pope.
And I quote some of it because it's very funny
and very vicious and very crazy. He was vicious to
his fellow Protestants with whom he disagreed, vicious, vicious to
the Muslims. But of course nobody ever hears about that.
You only hear about what he said about the Jews.
Why because the Nazis grabbed what he said about the
(36:14):
Jews and they said, look, our national hero, the Sainted Luther,
said this. They didn't quote what he said about Jesus
and about loving your neighbor and about he said. Ninety
nine point nine percent of what he said. The Nazis
didn't want to quote and didn't believe and despise, but
(36:36):
they found just what he said. And so everybody today
says he was an anti Semite. He said this, and
he said that, Well, what he said is horrible. Let's not,
you know, sugarcoat it, but when you put it in context,
it's at least different than simply horrible. It's far more complicated.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Eric Metexas, and he wrote Martin Luther, the Man who
Rediscovered God and changed the world. He's also the author
of Bonaffer Pastor, Martyr, Prophet and Spy and we've done
(37:15):
that story with him as well. And they did very
different things at very different times, but in the end
they did hard things and they challenged well the world
order and the order in front of them, and they
did it in obedience to their God. And the story
of him being kidnapped or the fake kidnapping to get
him out of this outlaw mode. I mean, imagine the
(37:38):
Pope declaring you are heretic and the Emperor Rome calling
you an outlaw. Well, your life expectancy, well it just
went down a notch. And while living in this beautiful prison,
he decides to translate the Bible and does so in
eleven weeks from Greek, not from Latin, but from Greek
into German. As a result, Eric's said the Gospel was
(38:01):
out of its cage. The story of Martin Luther, the
man who discovered God and changed the world. Here on
our American stories
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Today's story is about one man who changed
the world five hundred years ago. The origin of this
(00:33):
conflict flowed from a deceptively simple question, a riddle of
sorts that a Catholic monk named Martin Luther wrestled with
for years. The question he asked himself was this Am
I a good person? Here to tell the story is
best selling author Eric Matexas. Eric wrote Martin Luther, the
man who rediscovered God and changed the world. Let's take
(00:58):
a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
When Martin Luther King Junior was about five years old. Okay,
we're talking about the Black leader in twentieth century. His
father was a famous Baptist preacher, and he visited the
Holy Land with a whole bunch of other Baptists. This
is like would have been I don't know, nineteen twenty
(01:22):
or something I'm not gonna write. And on the way
back he went to Germany and visited Wittenberg and stuff,
and was so blown away. This is the Black Father
was so blown away by the life of Martin Luther
that as an adult he changed his name from Michael
King to Martin Luther King. As an adult, he changed
(01:48):
his name. That's how big of a deal Luther has
been in history. And his son, Michael Junior, changed his
name to Martin Luther King Junior. Until the day Martin
Luther King Junior died, his close friends called him Mike.
I would say Luther is the most influential man in
(02:09):
two thousand years, apart from Jesus. There's no doubt that
God used this very flawed man, and so I was
really convinced that this is a gigantically important story. Luther
was born on November tenth, but the year in which
he was born, we actually don't know. We're sure that
it's fourteen eighty two, fourteen eighty three, or fourteen eighty four.
(02:31):
I'm pretty sure it's fourteen eighty three, but no one
really knows, including his own mother, who was nearby when
it took place. We actually don't that's kind of weird,
but it's true. But he's born on November tenth. On
November eleventh, they take him to church and baptize him,
because the whole point was if you're not baptized, you'll
go to Hell forever, right, so you might want to
(02:54):
speed up with the baptismal process. Kind of important. So
they baptized him on November eleventh, which was Saint Martin's death,
and they named him Martin, after the saint for whom
the day was named. So Luther was raised in a
fairly well to do family. Now there's all these myths
you hear that he grew up and he always said,
(03:14):
I am the son of a poor miner, and I
come from peasant stock. He was kind of like blowing
smoke the way politicians do. They kind of like want
to try to, you know, tell you they come from
these humble roots. But the reality is his roots were
not that humble. He was exaggerating a little bit. His
father was not a poor miner. His father was an ambitious,
successful businessman in the mining business. His father wanted his
(03:37):
brilliant son to go to the best schools and to
go to the university, study law, and then come home
to Mansfeld and work in the family business. They needed
a brilliant lawyer to work with them, and they put
him on this path. They could never go to college,
you know, so they said it's on you. So the
problem is that Luther grew up at a time went
salvation and the fear of hell was so real that
(04:02):
while he is away from home at these schools, he's
thinking about eternal matters. Now his parents were Christians, but
I think that wherever he was that he had the freedom,
as being very sensitive, brilliant young man, to be thinking
about this stuff, and I think it was eating at him.
And by the time he goes to law school, he's
twenty two years old. His father sacrificed everything. Things come
(04:25):
to a head, and he has heard of some people
dying and on their deathbeds saying, you know, I wish
I hadn't done this, or that I wish I had
got into a monastery. I wish I'd given everything to God,
because now I'm facing eternity and I'm scared. People often
tell the story as though one day Luther's blithely minding
(04:48):
his own business, walking, you know, on the heath in
the village of Stuttternheim. A thunderstorm comes scares him to death.
He thinks he's going to be struck by lightning and
enter eternity, and he says, Saint save me. If you
save me, I'll become a monk. Saint Anne was the
patron saint of minors. And he doesn't die, and then
he thinks, well, I've just made a vow. I guess
I've got to become a monk. And he becomes a monk.
(05:09):
And that's, of course ridiculous because he had been thinking
about his own salvation very much in the years preceding this.
So the implication that this was just something that he
blurts out in a moment of fear and then it
changes the course of his whole life is just silly.
He was thinking incessantly about eternity. So when the thunderstorm
(05:31):
came and he says this vow, which did happen? It
was only all of these things coming to a head.
It wasn't some dramatic thing. The bottom line is this
was against his father's wishes. But he said, I cannot
take a chance. He was scared of obeying his father
(05:52):
and going to Hell forever, and so he does this
against his father's wishes, and he gets into the monastery,
and what happens in the monastery, well, he realizes that
if I have to earn heaven, which was the basic
way of thinking, that means I've got to pray constantly,
I've got a fast constantly. I've got to deny myself
(06:13):
every pleasure. I have to confess every sinful thought. Otherwise,
any sinful thought can drag me to hell unless I
confess it to a priest, not to God, to a
priest who will officially absolve me. And if he doesn't
officially absolve me, I go to hell.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And you're listening to Eric Metaxas tell the story of
Martin Luther. And we tell this story because of course
America was founded by people who were a part of
this split in the Church that happened in the sixteenth century.
And what a fascinating story about his youth. The myth
busted my Metaxis that he came from a poor family
(06:56):
and that the father was a minor, a slight exact duration,
as Eric would put it, but one that was not true.
He came from a well to do family, well enough
to send him off to law school for the study
of law. That there was a crisis slurking, and an
existential one, a philosophical one, a spiritual one, because Luther
was worried about his eternal soul and worried about Hell.
(07:19):
So he leaves Law heads to the monastery. And when
we come back, more of this remarkable story of Martin
Luther here on our American Stories. Lee Hibibe here the
host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
(07:40):
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give.
(08:09):
And we continue with our American Stories and with Eric Metexas.
He's the author of Martin Luther, the Man who we
discovered God and change the world. Let's pick up where
we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Luther believed. Now think about this, I mean, later on
he taught that when you make a confession to God
and you repent to God, you're good. Faith is all
you need and God will forgive you. But the church
taught and Luther eventually fought viciously with this concept, the
Church said, it doesn't matter what is in your heart
and with God, you have to go to a priest.
(08:47):
Only the priest has the right and the authority granted
to him by Christ to absolve you of your sin.
So if you do not confess your sin officially with
a priest, it is still on you. It's still on
the books and will drag you to hell forever. Now,
if you take that as seriously as Luther took it,
you would never leave the confession booth. And so he
(09:13):
was miserable, trying to please God, trying to earn his
way into the favor of God. So Luther spends his
life praying and fasting and confessing like a maniac, driving
his father confessor insane, trying to seeing what Luther's going through,
how he's tortured and brilliant and passionate and intense, and
(09:34):
he sees that he's not finding peace. And he says
to him, do you hate God or you think God
hates you? God loves you? But Luther could not get this.
So he would come in and he thought, I've got
to confess every sin, and he would confess things like
you on Tuesday, I prayed for five hours, and at
the end of it, I had a flicker of pride
(09:55):
for having prayed for five hours, and that flicker of
pride will pull me into hell. So I confess it,
and you can imagine bunched up. It's like rolling his eyes.
He actually says to Luther, only half joking, bring me
a serious sin, bring me adultery or murder, or otherwise,
get out. I'm a busy man. Luther was just driving
(10:16):
him insane with every random thought, confessing, confessing, and he
understood that Luther is never going to find peace this way.
He's trying to earn the peace of God, and Luther
was failing. So Luther had another idea. He said, since
this is not working, I wonder if someplace in the
(10:37):
Bible there is the key, the golden key that I'm
looking for, the cure for what ails me now. People
had not read the Bible up to this point for many,
many centuries. Obviously, the printing press was not invented till
the fourteen fifties, and Luther is at the monastery in
fifteen oh five, so having Bibles was not a normal thing,
(10:59):
and the Catholic Church of that day did not have Bibles,
and they didn't read the Bible. They would use the
Bible as a text to create commentaries on the Bible.
So you'd study the commentaries, and you'd study commentaries on
the commentaries, but actually studying the Bible was not done.
The Bible had been translated by Saint Jerome twelve hundred
(11:20):
years earlier into Latin, and they had the Latin Vulgate,
and that was the official Church translation in Latin. Well,
Luther was living at a time humanism, this intellectual trend
was coming out where because of the fall of Constantinople
in fourteen fifty three, all these Greek scholars had come
out and suddenly they were revivifying the ancient languages, and
(11:41):
people began to read ancient texts, including the Bible, in
the original language. So Luther jumps on this and starts
studying the actual Bible, digging into it like a man
looking for the cure to a fatal disease, saying, if
I don't find it, I will die. And Luther felt,
if I don't find it, I will die the second death,
(12:04):
I will never be in the presence of God. I
need to find it, and so he obsessively reads through
the scriptures. Now, he was a super brilliant Bible reader,
and he dug and dug, and he taught Bible at
the university. And at some point around fifteen seventeen, he
reads Romans one seventeen. He reads this verse that he'd
(12:26):
never really understood before. It says, for in the Gospel,
the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written,
the just shall live by faith. And it finally strikes him,
I've been doing it all wrong. It is only by
(12:47):
faith that I can apprehend God, and by faith I
get the free gift of the righteousness of God. I
can't become righteous on my own. It's useless. But God,
who is holy and righteous, gives me the free gift
(13:08):
the Gospel. The good news is that he gives it
to me as a gift. I mean, imagine somebody gives
you a gift and you go, let me just give
you five bucks for that. That's insulting. He understands this
is a gift from God. The love of God and
the righteousness of God are given to me. And all
(13:28):
I need to do is believe that. And the Word
says it, and it's imputed to me as righteousness. I
am free. I am saved. Game over. I don't need
to climb and claw and work and pray. I'm saved.
It's over. And then when you appreciate that gift and
you apprehend it by faith, you accept the gift. Now
(13:51):
you can do all kinds of good works. But it's
the motivation is gratitude to the God who gave you
this free gift. I want to bless him. I want
to love people with the love with which he has
loved me. I want to help the poor, I want
to feed the hungry. I want to do every good
thing out of the joy and the gratitude of this
(14:13):
free gift of grace which I have apprehended only by faith. Wow,
this changes Luther's life, obviously, it changes everything. Imagine living
in a world where nobody gets this. They have because
of tradition over centuries, kind of built this up where
it's sort of about do this and don't do this,
(14:34):
and do this and don't do this. But once Luther
experiences this, the famous moments the day he nails the
ninety five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral,
that's the moment, and it's related, but not that directly related. Basically,
Luther notices that in the Catholic Church at this time,
they're doing this thing where they preach indulgences, where people
(14:55):
are throwing money into the coffers of the church and
buying these dificats kind of get out of jail free cards,
and it was creating this kind of corrupt, cynical world.
And Luther said, as a priest, this is not good
for the flock, this is not good for the sheep.
As a theologian, I need to tell my superiors what
is going on. Now. This is related to the works
(15:17):
righteousness stuff that I was just talking about, but it
starts out with a specific thing of indulgences. And Luther
does not shake his fist at the church. And you know,
we get this image of him. He was a humble monk,
a humble man of God, wanting to say in the
humblest way to his superiors, we have a problem. We
need to examine this problem. So why don't we have
(15:37):
a theological debate. That's what we theologians do in the university.
So in Latin, I'll write up these ninety five feces.
I'll post it on the church door, which, by the way,
was only the local bulletin board. He wasn't trying to
be like a big shop by saying I'm gonna put
it on the church door. The church store was the
bulletin board. Once you realize that, it doesn't seem so heroic, right,
(15:58):
But in retrospect we really that when he did that,
it blew everything up. It led to trouble.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And you've been listening to Eric Metaxas tell the story
of Martin Luther, and imagine this young man trying to
save his immortal soul and confessing his sin, trying to
well work his way into heaven.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And to save his soul from hell.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And he's confessing, and he's praying, and he's festing, and
he's essentially driving his confessor, his priest crazy. But he
believes and knows at the time that the only way
to get through, or at least that was the Catholic
Church's position, was through a priest. And then he discovers
that he can take his case directly to God. That
and some other criticisms of the church were posted on
(16:46):
the door of the church.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
But back then this was not some.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
High revolt, the mere act of posting something on a
church door. It was akin to posting something on a
bulletin board. But it was what was on that paper
that revolutionize the church. His critiques and by the way,
these critiques out of love for the church, not out
of hate for the Catholic Church. When we come back
(17:10):
more of the story of Martin Luther as told by
Eric Matexas, author of Martin Luther, The Man Who Discovered
God and Changed the World. Here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of Martin Luther as told by Eric Mattexas, author of
Martin Luther, The Man Who Discovered God and Changed the World.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
People said, who does he think he is criticizing indulgences,
and they, you know, threw mudd at him, and he
threw some mud back. He defended himself and it turned
into a conflagration that consumed all of Europe. This humble
monk never intended that. He never intended to break away
from the church. This was the only church he knew.
(18:45):
He never intended to start another church. Never. There were
other reformers who said almost exactly what Luther said. One
hundred years earlier. Jan Huss the family was Hungarian wicklift Hinendale.
And then there are some reformers like Saint Francis who
never were in scendiary or trouble making. But that's just
(19:08):
because they had a good pope or they had a
good who knows. But Wickliffe and Jan Huss they had
said almost exactly what Luther said. But the church and
the power was able to contain the trouble and crush
it and burn them at the stake, and that was
the end of that. The difference was when Luther brought
(19:29):
his information forward the printing press existed, which of course
it did not in fourteen fifteen when Hus was condemned
and people, without even asking Luther took the ninety five fieces.
He said, oh, this looks interesting. They translated into German
and they printed it and it sold like hotcakes. And
next thing, you know, everybody in Europe, not just Germany,
(19:51):
is reading these ninety five theieces, thinking hey, this is
a hot potato. This is the Pope's not going to
like this. It started to get kind of, you know,
beyond the horse got out of the barn and there
was no bringing it back in. So everything he wrote
then he would preach a sermon to clarify, like, oh, listen,
I don't read the theses. Let me let me give
(20:11):
my my more considered thinking on the subject of indulgences.
I'll preach a sermon. I better preach a sermon and
clarify because people are all hot headed about the ninety
five theses, which I only meant for other theologians to
read in Latin, but now everybody's talking about it. So
he preaches a sermon and prints it up and translate
into German, and then that gets distributed, and then the
archbishop says to him, well, you know that's causing trouble too,
(20:34):
can you can you can you stop distributing that? Can
you say? Well? Of course he was very humble in
but eventually Luther learned to use the medium of printing
and he could get his message out to the people.
There really had never been a people before. They were
just there was rulers and the people whom they ruled,
(20:56):
and they had nothing to say about anything. But suddenly
Luther his writings are getting out there and the people
are reading it and they're getting excited and they're thinking,
this man speaks for us. He's saying exactly what's true.
He's talking about the corruption, he's talking about this, he's
talking about that, and this is exactly what we feel.
And so, as I say, the horse got out of
the barn. And so even if they had killed Luther,
(21:18):
the movement, these intellectual ideas were out and there was
no bringing him back. Eventually, in fifteen twenty one, at
the grotesquely named Diet of Worms. Vorms was a city
in Germany, and Luther was called to go to the
City of Worms to face the music. The Pope had
(21:41):
sent a representative. The Holy Roman Empire was represented by
the Emperor Charles and all of the nobles, and they're
there to hear this man defend himself. Four years into
this insanity where the whole world is talking about these ideas,
and suddenly he's there and they say to him, because
(22:02):
they're trying to crush this descent. Things have gotten out
of hand, and they're trying to say to him, excuse me,
shut up, right, not excuse me, What did you mean
by that? How can we help you? It's excuse me,
you shut up. Racan't what you said, and we'll let
you walk out of here. But if you don't, you
will be taken to Rome and burnt at the stake.
(22:24):
So Luther has an opportunity to walk away. And it
reminds me of my friend Chuck Colson. He was given
a plea bargain at Watergate, and they basically said to him, look, look, look,
you want to avoid jail time. You got teenage kids,
you don't want to do jail time. Just sign on
this line, just say you did these things that you
didn't do. But you do that and you walk out
of here. Take the deal. Chuck your nuts not to
take the deal. Sign it. And he said, well, I
(22:48):
have a problem. I'm a Christian. I can't do that.
And Luther was in the same position. He said, I
understand that all I have to do is say I
recan't Everything I've said sorry won't happen again, and I
walk out of here. But he felt compelled by God
not to do that. He felt compelled by God to
(23:10):
demand of them that they show him where he had
made a mistake. He said, if I'm wrong, I don't
want to paper this over. Show me where I screwed up.
Show me, and of course I will recant and repent,
but you have to show me. From the scriptures what
did I get wrong? They didn't do that. They said,
(23:30):
are these your books? Yes or no? Yes? Do you
recant what you've written in these books? Yes or no?
He said, how can I recant what I've written? I've
written many good things in these books. Show me what
it is that I've gotten wrong. Show me They weren't
going to do that. They wanted just to say, shut up,
bow before the authority of the church, and everything will
(23:51):
be fine. And he says, I can't do that. And
the famous line is here, I stand, I can do
no other You want me to recant unless you show
me from the scriptures? Here I stand, I can do
no Whether God help me. Amen, He casts himself on
(24:11):
the mercy of the Lord. Luther did not fear what
they could do to him. He said, I fear God.
I fear the truth. I want to represent what is true.
What about all those people depending on me? God's gonna
hold me responsible all those people. I have to speak
the truth. So he spoke the truth. And this is
(24:35):
one of the watersheds in the history of the world.
When you appreciate what happened in that room, it is
mind blowing. It's an epical moment in history. Others had
done it before, but somehow, when he did it, it
opened the door to what we call the future. I
(24:55):
say that he was the man that created the future,
the man that discovered the future. By holding the Gospel
up in this way, he did something that changed the
world forever and ever, and all of the freedoms that
we take for granted, the very idea of democracy, the
idea that the individual can speak against power, and that
(25:17):
all of these things. The whole modern world started that day.
And it's not an overstatement to say that that is
exactly what happened on that day.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Informs and you're listening to Eric Mattexas tell one heck
of a story of Martin Luther. And again, Eric is
the author of Martin Luther, The Man who Discovered God
and changed the World. He's also the author of one
of my favorite books. Bonheffer picked both up, You won't
regret It, two of the greatest reads you'll ever experience
(25:49):
in your lifetime. You're hearing a good bulk of the
story here, and it was just simple. He was saying
to the Church and the superiors, let's have a discussion.
I have a problem. I have some text to back it.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Up.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You see, the Bible was now within reach of some people.
There were printing presses, and this was a problem for
the superiors. And of course, well, what people do with
power is what they do with power. And they wanted
Martin Luther to simply recant, and not recant on principle,
not recant after a debate or a discussion, but simply
to recant and repent because they said so. And of
(26:24):
course he didn't. Here I stand, I can do no
other was his reply. And of course he didn't fear man,
he feared God. And this would begin a revolution in
the world. His example would begin a revolution in the world.
More of the story of Martin Luther, the Man who
discovered God and changed the world. Here on our American stories.
(27:37):
And we continue with our American stories and with Eric Mattexas,
the author of Martin Luther, the Man who Rediscovered God
and changed the World. Here is Eric with the final
part of this remarkable story.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
He's declared not just a heretic, but now an outlaw,
meaning that the Pope says he's a heretic, but then
the Holy Roman Emperor declares him an outlaw. Because if
the Pope says you're a heretic. You are now also illegal,
you're an outlaw, renegade. And so they let him go
back home, but it's pretty clear that as soon as
(28:12):
he gets home, there's going to be, you know, somebody's
gonna come to arrest him, and then he's going to
be taken to Rome and he's going to be burned
to the steake. So his protector, in a way, Frederick
the Third, Frederick the Wise, who he sensed that Rome,
those Italians are not treating him right. They didn't give
him a fair hearing, and I don't want him to
go down there and be killed and whatever. So here's
(28:33):
what we're going to do. We're going to kidnap him.
And it's out of a movie, right that he is
on the way home from Vorms, going home, and he
knows this is going to happen. They've told him, but
they told him they didn't tell him who's going to
kidnap you, nor where they're going to take you, you
know nothing, Just go along with it, and they kidnap
him with crossbows drawn. It's actually kind of a scary scene.
(28:57):
The people in the wagon didn't know that this was fake.
And so Luther is kidnapped by these strangers and dragged
through the night to a castle called the Vartborg. It's
way up in the Thuringian forest and it's this castle
and nobody knows he's there. And then if that's not,
you know, exciting enough, he has to be disguised. So
(29:20):
he grows out his tonsure, you know, the tonsure they
would shave their heads. He grows out his hair, and
he grows a beard, a cavalier's beard, to look like
a knight because he has to blend in with the
other knights at the castle. They're not told that this
is Martin Luther, so they call him Knight George or
Junker Georg. And he's now incognito as a knight in
(29:42):
the castle for a year. And of course while he's there,
he's dressed as a knight, and he's kind of bored
because he's a very busy guy. When he's back home
now he has nothing to do. So what does he do.
He translates the New Testament into German in eleven weeks.
People say, well, was this the first time it had
(30:03):
been translating to German. No, but it was the first
time it was translated from the original Greek, not from
the Latin Vulgate, so it was accurate. He was obsessed
with what exactly does the Word of God say? What
does it say? And there were some mistakes in the
Latin Vulgate translated by Jerome, which the Church had accepted,
and so he wanted to get it exactly right, and
(30:27):
he wanted to write it in such a way that
the common men and women of Germany could understand what
it said. He knew that this book has never been
read by these people, and so his writing was so good.
This is the thing. This man's nothing but a genius
of history. His writing was so good that to this
(30:47):
day Germans read the Luther translation. I mean, it's not
like it was some primitive thing that they've improved upon.
He was a poet with the vernacular. As a result
of that, the Gospel was allowed out of its cage
into the world in a way that it had never
(31:07):
been before. Now this is not to say that the
Gospel didn't exist before Luther or God forbid, but it
had been sort of hidden and forgotten. Luther rediscovers it
in a way that he brings it into the world,
not just so that we can get saved, but so
that we who get saved can then take that gospel
(31:28):
and do every good thing imaginable in the world in
gratitude to the God of Mercy. The Gospel frees us
to bring justice and truth and life. Slavery would never
have been abolished in the United States of America if
not for born again Jesus freaks who believed were all
created in the image of God. What do you think
(31:50):
the idea came from secular people? Church people, born again
Jesus freaks who believed in the Word of God said
slon abomination, and we don't care what has been going
on for thousands of years. It needs to end. That
is the Gospel of Jesus Christ freed into history. Luther
is a huge piece of that. And I have to
(32:11):
tell you, if he had not had the courage and
the faith to stand when he stood, I have no
idea how it would have gone down. This is one
of the most beautiful things that fairly late in life
for him. He was forty one and he decides to
(32:33):
get married. And it wasn't because he was lusting and
he said, I've got to get married. It wasn't because
he was madly in love and he had to marry
this woman. He found himself in a place in life
where this nun had escaped from the nunnery. Actually Luther
sprang her from the jug He was, you know, the
main orchestrator of this escape of the Nimshen twelve nuns
(32:56):
from Nimshen. We call him the Nimpshen twelve. And they
had to figure out what they're going to do. You
can't just these nuns had been there against their will,
and he thought it's not right, and they need to
be able to make their own decisions. If they don't
want to be nuns, they shouldn't have to be nuns.
And so this was highly illegal, and he springs them
out of there, and suddenly where do they come. They
all come to Wittenberg and sort of say, well, okay,
(33:18):
now what do we do? So he had to get
them married off. I mean he had to find them,
you know, a position in a house or something. They
had to do something because they were poor. And one
of them didn't want to marry the man that they
had kind of picked for her. And she was kind
of brassy and outspoken, you know, instead of saying, okay,
thank you very much, I'll marry this guy. She didn't
(33:40):
like him, and she told Luther's friend Nicholas von Lmsdorf,
I really don't want to marry that guy, and she said,
rather cheekily, I would marry you, meaning Nicholas von Armsdorf
or doctor Luther. So in a way, she's the one
that proposed. It's very funny. Armsdorf was not at all
interested in marrying and Luther somehow his head got turned
(34:03):
slightly around, and at first he thought she was arrogant
or something, but at some point he decided he esteemed her.
That's the phrase that I use, and I think that
he uses that. He really respected her. She was only
she was fifteen years younger, far less educated, but he
really really respected her. And that grew into a beautiful
(34:27):
and deep love that is so beautiful that it should
be a model for all of us. We're all looking
for these feelings and stuff. He had this really beautiful relationship.
The two of them esteemed each other and loved each other,
and they had six kids, and he loved his kids.
And it shows you a dramatically different side, the playful
(34:47):
side of the human side of Martin Luther. Luther said
many things in his life that were extremely positive about
the Jews were he was way ahead of his time
in understanding their plight, the way Christians treated them and stuff.
But the Nazis cynical, satanically influenced that they were. They
(35:10):
found what Luther wrote just a few years before he died.
He was, for him, very ill and cranky, and he
had by that time in his life gotten to where
he was saying extraordinarily nasty things about everyone. He was vicious.
His friends told him, you know, you got to stop tweeting.
(35:31):
It's not presidential, and oh, you know what, I'm sorry.
I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I apologize.
But at his very funeral, his dearest friend Melanthon is
saying in his eulogy that Luther was not a perfect guy.
So everybody kind of knew it. But the point is
(35:53):
that Luther was vicious to the Catholics and to the Pope.
And I quote some of it because it's very funny
and very vicious and very crazy. He was vicious to
his fellow Protestants with whom he disagreed, vicious, vicious to
the Muslims. But of course nobody ever hears about that.
You only hear about what he said about the Jews.
Why because the Nazis grabbed what he said about the
(36:14):
Jews and they said, look, our national hero, the Sainted Luther,
said this. They didn't quote what he said about Jesus
and about loving your neighbor and about he said. Ninety
nine point nine percent of what he said. The Nazis
didn't want to quote and didn't believe and despise, but
(36:36):
they found just what he said. And so everybody today
says he was an anti Semite. He said this, and
he said that, Well, what he said is horrible. Let's not,
you know, sugarcoat it, but when you put it in context,
it's at least different than simply horrible. It's far more complicated.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Eric Metexas, and he wrote Martin Luther, the Man who
Rediscovered God and changed the world. He's also the author
of Bonaffer Pastor, Martyr, Prophet and Spy and we've done
(37:15):
that story with him as well. And they did very
different things at very different times, but in the end
they did hard things and they challenged well the world
order and the order in front of them, and they
did it in obedience to their God. And the story
of him being kidnapped or the fake kidnapping to get
him out of this outlaw mode. I mean, imagine the
(37:38):
Pope declaring you are heretic and the Emperor Rome calling
you an outlaw. Well, your life expectancy, well it just
went down a notch. And while living in this beautiful prison,
he decides to translate the Bible and does so in
eleven weeks from Greek, not from Latin, but from Greek
into German. As a result, Eric's said the Gospel was
(38:01):
out of its cage. The story of Martin Luther, the
man who discovered God and changed the world. Here on
our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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